Expectation Versus Reality

Original A/N: This story couldn't seem to decide whether it wanted to be serious and creepy or cracky and humorous, and I think ended up in a strange place somewhere in between. I couldn't not write this prompt, though, so I hope you enjoy it!

A/N 2: Written as part of Chocolate Box 2017 for AFTanith, prompted by a request to address the awkward movieverse hug between Draco and Voldemort - if that was the first time or a thing.

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Draco had grown up with a whole host of ideas in his head about what the Dark Lord was like and how glorious and wonderful serving him would be. He'd spent most of his childhood hoping for the dark wizard's return to occur sooner rather than later thanks to the things his parents had taught him.

The Dark Lord valued old, pureblood families. The Malfoys were one of the oldest and purest blood families still around. That wasn't a mere boast, his parents had shown him it was true on the family tree. They'd proudly helped his young self trace just how many generations back their magic ran, and how few squibs and mudblood lovers had needed to be pruned away.

The Dark Lord wanted to change things for the better by making sure that those who were more deserving, more rightfully magical, were the ones in charge. Draco had learned very early on that muggles were silly, backwards creatures and their children with magic little better. They simply weren't capable of understanding the nuances of the magical world, and certainly should have no say in how it was governed.

Knowing all this with the surety that only comes from being taught it as truth from a very young age, Draco had been certain serving the Dark Lord would be a chance for him to finally shine as his heritage meant he was destined to do. Nothing that happened during his years at Hogwarts gave him enough cause for doubt, despite Potter's rejection of him and constant irritating successes and Granger's annoyingly high grades.

Sure he had been a little apprehensive his father's failure and temporary incarceration in Azkaban thanks to that prat Potter might have some consequences for their stature in the Dark Lord's ranks. It's not like Draco was stupid, he'd also realized that there would probably be some mundane drudgery involved in his initiation to the ranks of the Death Eaters. Sure he was a Malfoy, but that didn't mean he wouldn't have to put in some effort to prove himself a worthy inheritor to his rightful status. Unlike Hogwarts, the Dark Lord would be deserving of his efforts to succeed, and surely reward him in due time.

He wasn't stupid, but he could not have been more wrong or less prepared for what serving the Dark Lord was actually like. Yeah, he'd expected there to be torture of muggles, but not of their master's own followers. Also, for all that the Death Eaters regularly referred to the wizard in question with awe and honorifics like master, Draco hadn't expected to be treated like a mere servant or worse, a slave. It only got worse from there.

Being assigned to try and kill Dumbledore, the only wizard everyone acknowledged as truly standing in the Dark Lord's way? It was obviously a punishment for what his father had failed to do at the Ministry the year before. Even that seemingly insurmountable obstacle was nothing compared to the terror of the dark wizard moving into their manor. Actually seeing and being forced to take part in the kinds of games involving torture and death the Death Eaters did for fun were horrific.

He'd had his own fantasies of revenge and death directed at Potter and his Gryffindor cronies, but they had been childish, naïve things absent of any understanding of what it was like to really kill someone, and at least they had been personal. The torturing of random wizards and muggles for simply existing, for sport? He wasn't exactly proud to find he didn't have the stomach for it, didn't really know how to feel about what that said about him, but even beyond those personal issues, he felt it was just so undignified and petty. Not to mention ultimately pointless and kind of mental, really. Where was the grand vision to make anything better for anyone other than Voldemort himself?

The sad fact was, after just a few months living under the same roof as the wizard he'd been taught to admire growing up, Draco had to admit it. Potter was right. The Dark Lord was an evil monster and no good would come of his return for anyone, not even his followers. Maybe, Draco felt, them least so of all, considering the rest of the world had a better chance of hiding out of his direct path. Having to admit that, even in the privacy of his own mind was not quite as bad as the constant fear for his family, but it still ate away at him. Potter. Right. What had the wizarding world come to?

There was also something else bothering him, and maybe it was silly to place it so far above everything else that was wrong. Yet he couldn't help how much it disturbed him. On top of the irritation of having to side with Potter even in theory, on top of the terror and horror and the fatigue of constant fear, he also was just creeped out by the Dark Lord himself.

Not because he was an insanely powerful wizard who skulked around the mansion and acted menacing without actually directly making threats. Not because he cursed anyone who got in his way or happened to be around when he was bored. Not because he looked like some mutant snake-man hybrid gone completely and totally wrong in the worst way. Not because Voldemort's great big honking snake gave Draco a serious case of the shivers only outdone by the Dark Lord's parody of a smile. No, those were all disturbing, sure, but the thing that really bothered Draco? It was the hugs.

The first time it happened, he'd thought it was a weird waking nightmare. The Dark Lord had been holding a meeting and called on Draco to parrot back some affirmative response to his latest murder, and Draco had done as required. The next thing he knew, the wizard had been stalking over to him, robes billowing dramatically and an indecipherable expression on his face (not that a guy with a snake face had much expressive range outside the extremes). Draco had been frozen in fear that he'd somehow given the wrong response when he was suddenly being grabbed. It was probably just as well that he was frozen in fear at the time, because he didn't know what he'd have done otherwise.

Afterwards, the Dark Lord had turned back to the rest of the Death Eaters and continued on with the meeting as if this was somehow a perfectly normal thing to do. Once the meeting was over and he'd managed to recover, mostly, from the shock, Draco had to wonder what that was about.

So he'd asked his father about it when they had a moment alone. All he'd gotten was a long, dry lecture about respecting the Dark Lord and being careful of their family's tenuous position. Which would have been a little more convincing if he'd actually addressed the subject at hand and hadn't been pointedly avoiding his only son's eyes the entire time. It's disquieting, and Draco doesn't have the heart to ask his father a second time. Partly because he's a little afraid of the answer he might get and partly because for the first time in his life, Draco's father looks weak and maybe even a little old. While there's a tiny part of Draco that resents his father for putting him and his mother in the position they're in, there's no doubt he loves him and doesn't want to add to the man's worries. Who knows why the Dark Lord does anything? Maybe it was just an aberration.

Then, nightmarishly, it happens again. Worse, it lingers awkwardly for a whole minute that feels like eternity while Draco fights the urge to struggle. The Dark Lord's robes have a weird musty smell, cloying to his nose. Between his father's evasive answer and the fact he hasn't seen this happen to anyone else, Draco realizes he needs to know just how worried he should be about this particular part of the never-ending nightmare he's living in. Asking his father hadn't worked, but maybe he can look elsewhere for answers.

His mother rarely attends meetings with the Dark Lord herself, so he doesn't think there's too much point in asking her, and she's already distressed enough as things stand. So Draco asks his Aunt Bellatrix. That's a mistake he regrets almost instantly. Not because he gets a disturbing answer, but because her face transforms into an incredibly unsettling dreamy expression. As he quickly tells her to forget it, she wanders off towards the room she's currently using, muttering something about her husband and wands that he tries hard not to understand. He doesn't want to ask her again, because a response with actual words could only be more traumatizing.

It's a little harder to figure out who else to question, though. Family is one thing, but other Death Eaters who could choose to read the question as disloyal? It's a gamble he can ill afford. His mother's convictions about Snape because of the Unbreakable Vow he'd taken for her ultimately decides Draco to try one more time. He still spends a couple of days rephrasing the question in his head, trying to make sure he's avoided any implications of doubting the Dark Lord. However, Draco isn't sure exactly how to take Snape's completely matter-of-fact answer that yes, the Dark Lord just does that. As if it's perfectly normal. The answer also leaves him with terribly disturbing mental images of Snape and the Dark Lord hugging that he really could have done without.

Still, worry about it plagues him on top of everything else. Especially when it happens two more times in quick succession. After the one incident with the disturbing hair stroking, he threatens one of the house elves into helping him fake a contagious magical illness. It gets him out of having to leave his room, but also gives him too much extra time with nothing to do but think. His inability to get an answer on what he thinks should be a fairly straightforward question has him imagining asking other questions about the Dark Lord. What would happen if he dared to ask about the wizard's tendency to curse, belittle, and order about the supposedly superior pure blood wizards he has in his service? How superior can any of them be, having chosen to serve a madman? For the first time since he actually met the git, he has to hope that all the Chosen One nonsense about Potter is true and that his rival's absurd luck can hold out long enough to take down the Dark Lord. What could possibly be more galling than that? Aside from hiding out in his room to avoid being manhandled by the dark wizard his parents had mislead him into idolizing.

In the end, standing with the others amid the partially destroyed castle, he almost hopes he doesn't make it through the rest of the battle of Hogwarts yet to come. Being saved by Potter and his obnoxious friends was mortifying enough for several lifetimes, and then the idiot had to go and get himself killed the one time Draco was actually rooting for him! Typical. Being jubilantly hugged by the Dark Lord in front of all of his peers, most of whom were too young to have officially joined the Dark Lord's service and have a chance of understanding why he had to just go along with it? Once he knows that the Dark Lord's side is the wrong one in every way? There aren't words for that kind of humiliation. Plus, he really has to hope that the way the Dark Lord's hand strayed at the end was an accident.